Half Yellow Face

Crow Indians by D.F. Barry. This may be the only photograph of Half Yellow Face, possibly the man wearing the cavalry coat.

Half Yellow Face (or Ischu Shi Dish in the Crow language) (1830? to 1879?) was the leader of the six Crow Scouts for George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry during the Great Sioux War of 1876. Half Yellow Face fought with Major Marcus Reno's troops in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Half Yellow Face led the six Crow scouts as Custer advanced up the Rosebud Valley. The scouts entered the Little Bighorn valley on June 25, 1876 as the Battle of the Little Bighorn began. According to witnesses, before detaching from Custer's command to join Reno's, Half Yellow Face told Custer (through interpreter Mitch Boyer): "You and I are going home today by a road we do not know".

Enlistment as a scout

As the 1876 campaign against the Sioux got underway General John Gibbon was ordered to march from Fort Ellis (near present-day Bozeman, Montana) and cross the Bozeman Pass and travel east down the Yellowstone River to about opposite the mouth of the Rosebud and Tongue Rivers. This was to prevent the Sioux, who were known to be on the south side of the river, from crossing to the north.

While en route down the Yellowstone River, Lieutenant Bradley, Gibbon's Chief of Scouts detoured up the Stillwater River to the site of the Crow Agency (near present-day Absarokee, Montana) and enlisted Crow scouts on April 10, 1876.

Some historians recount the statement as being made by Bloody Knife, but that is contrary to the stated recollection of the Crow scout, White Man Runs Him, who was present. on the basis that Half Yellow Face spoke no English, and Custer spoke no Crow. However, White Man Runs Him who was present, stated that Half Yellow Face spoke through the scouts' interpreter, Mitch Boyer

Whether the remark attributed to Half Yellow Face was made on the morning of June 25, 1876 through an interpreter or by sign language, two things about it are true. First, the remark, though possessing poetic power, probably made no impression on Custer who continued with his plan to divide his troops into separate units and attack the Sioux/Cheyenne encampment. Second the remark was remarkably prophetic for Custer and the five troops of cavalry who went with him.

Actions in the battle

As the battle began, Half Yellow Face and another Crow scout, White Swan, went with Major Reno's detachment and took a direct and active part in the initial combat at the south end of the village on the valley floor.

White Swan was severely wounded fighting on the valley floor, and as Reno ordered his soldiers to retreat from the valley floor to a place on the bluffs just above and to the east of the river, Half Yellow Face stayed behind to assist his friend. White Swan was lying on the edge of a thicket. Half Yellow Face crawled back and got the help of an Arikara scout named Young Hawk and together they dragged White Swan into some timber. Eventually Half Yellow Face got White Swan on a horse and then led the horse through the timber and across the river and up the steep trail to the relative safety in the Reno hilltop entrenchments, arriving at about 5 p.m. This movement by Half Yellow Face and White Swan out of the valley was possible in the late afternoon because after driving Reno's troopers from the valley earlier in the afternoon, the Sioux had detected Custer and the other five troops coming toward their village from the east, and the main body of Sioux warriors left the valley to attack Custer's detachment, to protect the Sioux village from this new threat.

After getting White Swan to the hospital area in the Reno entrenchments Half Yellow Face continued to assist Reno. It was Half Yellow Face who rode south and contacted the Benteen contingent coming up from the south, in response to Custer's message directing Benteen to come to his aid bringing the ammunition packs. Half Yellow Face guided the Benteen contingent to the place where Reno had entrenched.

After the battle

After engaging the 7th Cavalry in combat on June 25, and after continuing to besiege the Reno/Benteen contingent in their hilltop entrenchments on the 26th, the Sioux/Cheyenne force became aware of Gibbon advancing on them from the north, and late on the 26th they took down their village and went south up the valley of the Little Bighorn River. On the 27th after the Sioux had left, Half Yellow Face made a special travois and moved the wounded Crow Scout White Swan twelve miles down the valley to the "Far West" steamship

Death, burial and legacy

In 1877, Lt. General Philip H. Sheridan commanding the Military Division of the Missouri sent his brother, Lt. Col. Michael V. Sheridan to the battlefield, to re-inter the bodies of the enlisted men, and to bring back the remains of certain officers. Lt. Col. Michael Sheridan visited the battlefield on July 2, 1877, seeking "some intelligible account of the massacre". The 1885 Census records confirm that Half Yellow Face had died leaving his wife Can't Get Up and 3 children.